Fire-suppression may refer to a use of agents such as gases, liquids, solids, chemicals and mixtures thereof to extinguish combustion. Fire-suppression systems generally use a “total flooding” or a “non-total flooding” method to apply an extinguishing agent in an enclosed volume. The total flooding or the non-total flooding method may achieve a concentration of the extinguishing agent as a volume percent to air of the extinguishing agent sufficient to suppress or extinguish a fire.
In an aircraft application, each cargo compartment may have its own dedicated distribution system comprising tubes routed to nozzles in a cargo bay. The nozzles may be mounted in pans down a centerline of a cargo bay ceiling liner. The extinguishing agent may also be released directly into a compartment where there are no tubes or nozzles, as the agent container(s) is/are plugged directly into the compartment. Fire-suppression systems may be operated automatically by an automatic detection and control mechanism, and/or manually by manual activation of an actuator via a local and/or remote switch, a combination thereof, and the like.
Fire-suppression systems are generally sized for worst case scenarios that may occur during descent when an aircraft begins to re-pressurize. Therefore, additional equipment and suppressant chemicals required during descent may determine a size of an overall system with resulting added weight and volume. Existing Halon systems are generally not capable of variable flow discharge (e.g., due to physical challenge of varying flow rate of Halon gas), and therefore are oversized to support descent conditions. Alternative non-Halon systems also have similar issues of oversized design.